Gamma Blade

by Tim Stevens

  So Brull didn’t much care how repulsive Popok, or his home nation, were.

  He saw a market, and he responded to it.

  He said: “It didn’t work out tonight. There was a complication. I’m working on it.”

  Down the crackle of the line, Brull thought he heard heavy, labored breathing. Maybe Popok had asthma or something. Maybe he was smoking a cigarette.

  Or maybe he was getting a blowjob.

  Brull recoiled at the thought.

  Popok said, “Complication?”

  “Yes. Don’t worry about it. It’s a detail. Nothing more.”

  Another pause.

  “This is unacceptable,” said Popok.

  “It is what it is,” Brull said, easily.

  “I require confirmation that product has been dispatched.” The Turkmen sounded to Brull like a not particularly intelligent customer calling to complain that his bulk order of Doritos was late arriving.

  Brull said: “You’ll get that confirmation. Right now, I’ve got nothing more to offer you but my word.”

  He expected the man to start blustering, to threaten him. But instead he listened to silence for a few seconds. Then Popok said, “When can I expect news?”

  “Most likely tomorrow night.”

  Popok grunted. He sounded disapproving, but pacified.

  “What went wrong?” he said in his thick accent.

  “Nothing, really,” Brull answered smoothly. “My men were just taking extra care. They evaluated the situation, believed there to be a risk of the police taking an interest, and decided to abort the meeting. They chose wisely, in my view. Better to be safe than sorry.”

  “The police...?” murmured the Turkmen at the other end.

  “Like I said. Don’t worry. Of course there are cops everywhere. This is Miami. There happened to be a few of them in the vicinity tonight, just out on patrol, and my guys decided it wasn’t worth the risk.” Brull was getting impatient at covering old ground all over again. “Listen, I’ll call you tomorrow, around the same time.”

  He hung up and dropped the phone on the seat next to him.

  In truth, he had no idea if the meet could take place tomorrow night. He didn’t know what the cops knew, or whether they were even now boarding the boat and making enquiries. He was pretty sure this New York cop, this Venn guy, wasn’t anything more than a passerby who, in an unfortunate turn of coincidental events, happened to have seen Elon knocking the mystery man unconscious. But Venn had called the local cops, and the unconscious stranger was now under their protection, and Brull didn’t know who in the hell the man was.

  So things had gotten complicated.

  There were three priorities, then.

  Find out more about Venn and what he was doing in Miami.

  Find the stranger whose assistance Venn had gone to.

  And reschedule the Merry May business.

  Brull saw a wide boulevard ahead and floored the accelerator, exulting in the surge of the Challenger’s engine as it roared beneath him.

  It was going to be a long night.

  Chapter 10

  The cop Venn was riding with was good, keeping pace with the ambulance as it screamed through the congested Friday evening streets and never allowing more than a couple of vehicles to get between the patrol car and the ambulance’s taillights. The cop didn’t say anything as he drove, and that suited Venn fine, because he was still feeling a little groggy and small talk wasn’t what he needed.

  It had taken him a few seconds to orient himself in the alleyway before the realization hit him: he hadn’t been shot. His head hurt like a son of a bitch, and his vision was shifting from double to single and back again at an alarming rate, but there’d been no bullet.

  The guy had hit him, probably with the butt of the gun, and then taken off. It meant he’d been smart enough to understand the implications of becoming a cop killer, and had decided not to go there.

  Which suggested two things.

  The man wasn’t dumb.

  And he hadn’t killed a cop before.

  But he’d sounded, and acted, like a professional. Already a vague, insubstantial picture of the man was beginning to form in Venn’s methodical, police detective’s mind.

  He had the guy’s voice imprinted in his auditory cortex, and he played back snatches of it as he rode in the patrol car, listening for nuances. The guy hadn’t exactly sounded like a professor of astrophysics, but he sounded educated to several rungs higher than your average street thug.

  The hospital appeared suddenly in front of them, a tall blocky structure festooned with blazing lights and a platoon of ambulances swarming in and out of the entrance gate. It looked busy as a railroad station at rush hour, and Venn guessed this was one of the major destinations for people who’d gotten sick or been injured in Miami on a Friday night.

  The ambulance they were following came to a controlled but abrupt halt in a bay outside the ER. The patrol car pulled in behind it, allowing space for the rear doors to be opened. As Venn swung his lanky frame from the back seat - he felt a tug of nausea, and realized the blow to the back of his head was still having an effect - he saw the ambulance doors open and the female paramedic jump down. She slid the gurney down after her and Beth came out last.

  Venn winced as he saw her land on the asphalt. She hadn’t done anything but drop down as anybody would, but he didn’t think a jolt of any kind would be good for the baby.

  Then he shook his head at himself. Stop being so anxious.

  The paramedics and Beth rolled the gurney into the ER, Venn and the two cops from the patrol car following at a less hurried pace. Inside, the ER reminded Venn of the ones back in New York and Chicago. The layout was different, but the rest was the same: the hubbub of human noise, the frenetic rushing about, the smell of booze and spilled blood and antiseptic.

  A senior-looking nurse stepped in front of them and asked them if she could help. She let them through after one of the uniformed cops had given a brief explanation, but by that time they’d lost Beth and the others.

  They found them in an examination room, where a team of ER staff were already getting busy around the unconscious man, attaching him to assorted leads, drawing tubes of blood from his arm, shining pencil flashlights in his eyes. A doctor saw Venn and the other two cops hovering near the sliding door of the room and made a shooing gesture with his fingers.

  They withdrew, and glanced at each other. Venn had been through this kind of thing before, and he supposed the two patrolmen had, too. The guy in the room was now out of their hands, and in a bunch of other people’s. It felt like they’d been robbed, and it was frustrating.

  The door slid open a moment later and Beth emerged.

  “They’re ordering a CT scan, but there doesn’t seem to be any neurological damage so far,” she said.

  Venn: “When’s he gonna wake up?”

  She raised her eyebrows. “No way of telling with these things.” She stepped closer. “Now, let’s get you looked at.”

  Venn took a pace back, held up his hands. “Whoah. No need for that.”

  Beth looked gently exasperated. “You just got knocked unconscious yourself,” she chided. “You’re not leaving here until you get checked out.”

  Venn knew better than to argue.

  *

  The intern who examined him was impossibly young looking, nervous when she realized from Venn’s air of authority that he was a cop, and even more uneasy when she discovered Beth was an attending physician. But she did a thorough job, prodding and squeezing and testing his reflexes and sensation and power, and by the end Venn was impressed by her quiet competence.

  “So I’ll live,” he grunted.

  By now, the intern was a little more relaxed. “You’ll most likely wake up tomorrow with a neck as stiff as a two-by-four,” she said. “Take a bunch of ibuprofen through the day. I’ll put it on your ward prescription chart.”

  “Hold on,” said Venn. “What ward?”

  She looke
d nervous again. “It’s standard procedure. A history of loss of consciousness requires admission at least overnight, with neuro obs.”

  Venn tried to give her his most winning smile, but a twinge in the back of his head turned it into a grimace which he guessed made him look more like a shark baring its teeth. “Doc, I appreciate what you’ve done, and your advice, but I’m had my lights punched out before. I know what it’s like. And I feel fine. Really. So there’s no admission needed.”

  The intern glanced at Beth, who shrugged ruefully and almost apologetically.

  “I’ll sign the release forms, to say I’m discharging myself against medical advice,” Venn said, remembering that doctors were big on that kind of stuff. The intern looked visibly relieved.

  Venn sat on the edge of the bed in the examination cubicle, Beth perched in a chair alongside, while they waited for the intern to return with the paperwork.

  He said, “You okay?”

  Beth swept a hand across her face. “Sure. No harm done.”

  “Hell of a way to start your conference weekend,” he said. “And our weekend away together.”

  She smiled. “But we can still salvage it. A good night’s sleep, and then tomorrow’s a new day. This is out of our hands now, Venn. My patient’s in safe hands, and the thug you were chasing, as well as the one who hit you, are the business of the Miami Police Department now.”

  “Yeah,” said Venn. “I guess.”

  But he knew, and he knew Beth knew, that he couldn’t just let it drop. He’d come close to death, and however much Beth herself hadn’t been directly threatened, she and the baby had been in danger.

  He was personally involved, and he could no more simply walk away than he could ignore the throbbing of an infected tooth in his mouth.

  The curtain twitched aside and Venn and Beth looked up.

  A woman stood there. It wasn’t the young intern, back with the release papers.

  The woman was Cuban-looking, in her late forties, with a narrow, dour face and gray-streaked straight hair pulled back in an indifferent ponytail. Her eyes were sharp and intense, and small, with the whites barely visible. She wore a pair of cargo pants and a polo shirt under a denim jacket. A leather bag was lung over one shoulder.

  In her right hand she held a detective’s shield.

  “Lauren Estrada,” she said, in a voice soaked brown with nicotine. “I’m a detective lieutenant with the Miami PD. Need to speak with you both.”

  *

  She led them to an office down a far-flung corridor of the hospital, away from the ER. It looked like the kind of place a bunch of administrators shared during office hours, with no personal touches on the walls or the desk such as family photos or certificates of qualification. Estrada dropped into the chair behind the desk as if she was used to it, and Venn wondered if this was a place the cops often used when they were conducting interviews in the hospital.

  Venn was surprised that Estrada was alone. Cops, whether detectives or uniformed officers, normally worked in pairs. It was standard practice across the United States, and as far as he knew in police departments all over the world. It reduced the risks of one cop getting the wrong information, and also protected them in case of claims of brutality or harassment or whatever. But no partner had joined Estrada as she’d taken them out of the ER - the intern had appeared as they walked, and Venn signed the waiver - and toward the admin wing.

  “Sit,” said Estrada, without preamble, indicating two chairs on the opposite side of the desk. Then: “Coffee?” She said it like she hoped they’d say no.

  Venn and Beth both declined.

  He half-expected her to prop her booted feet up on the desk, but she didn’t. She sat back in the chair and folded her hands in front of her - Venn watched her fingers writhe, as if she was itching to crack her knuckles - and said: “So. Lieutenant Joseph Venn, from New York.”

  “That’s right.”

  “What you doing here?”

  She didn’t mess around, Venn realized.

  He said, “I already told your patrolmen. I’m here with my fiancée, Dr Colby, on a weekend break.”

  Estrada didn’t so much as glance at Beth when Venn said her name. Her small, black eyes seemed to glitter.

  “Never mind the bullshit,” she said crisply. Her accent held only the faintest tinge of Cuban. Venn guessed she’d been born in the US, or emigrated here at a very young age. “Why are you really here?”

  He gazed at her levelly. “That honestly is all there is to it, Lieutenant. Yeah, I know what it looks like. I show up in the middle of what looks like some kind of imminent rendezvous on the waterfront, and I chase a guy who’s just knocked a man unconscious. But it’s a coincidence. Nothing more.”

  Estrada continued to appraise him for what felt like ten seconds. Her face gave nothing away. There was no disbelief there, no contempt. But no acceptance either.

  Without breaking eye contact, she reached into her jacket pocket. Venn heard the crackle of foil paper, saw her extract a small square of white and pop it in her mouth. She began to chew slowly.

  Nicotine gum, he guessed.

  Venn spread his hands. “So. You believe me?”

  Estrada glanced away, as if she were considering. Instead of answering Venn’s question, she said, “I checked you out. You’re from the Division of Special Projects. Never heard of it. But from what I’ve been able to piece together, you’re kind of an investigator for political stuff.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “So, what, you keep crimes by big-shots quiet? Solve them and take care of them with minimum embarrassment for the perpetrators? Because they’re rich, and powerful, and the NYPD needs to keep them happy?” This time there was an edge to her voice, though her expression didn’t change from its customary sourness.

  Venn sighed inwardly. He’d had this kind of accusation leveled at him before, from cops within the Manhattan force and elsewhere. Most people hadn’t heard of his Division, which he was grateful for. He guessed the guys in Internal Affairs had a tougher time of it. Every cop knew who they were, and every cop detested them.

  “Wrong,” he said easily. “I take on cases the regular force is too scared to investigate. I get to go where money and power can’t protect the criminals.”

  Was that a shift in Estrada’s expression? Just a tiny relaxation of the tension in her face? Venn wasn’t sure.

  She placed her hands flat on the desktop. Venn noted that her nails were bitten to the quick, all of them.

  “Okay,” she said. “Take me through it. What you saw, what happened.”

  Venn didn’t bother protesting that he’d already given a statement to the patrolmen who’d showed up at the scene. As a detective himself, he always wanted to hear his own version of events from the person concerned. Not least, because he got to read the interviewee’s body language at the same time.

  And spot clues that they might be lying.

  He told Estrada, in as much detail as he could about the events of the evening. The row of men standing on the pier, watching the yacht. The stranger over to the left, who’d dropped after the guy had hit him. The chase down the alleyway, and the man who’d gotten the drop on Venn from behind.

  He described everything he could recall about that guy. His voice, his turn of phrase. The sound of his sneakers on the ground.

  Estrada took it all in without comment or interruption. When Venn was finished, she watched him for a couple of seconds.

  Then she turned her head to Beth.

  “Dr Colby,” she said. “Your turn.”

  While Beth relayed her account of events, Venn studied Estrada. She looked tough. The kind of cop who’d bitten and clawed her way up the ranks, not by screwing people over, necessarily, but in the course of battling an establishment that was even more macho down here in Miami than it was in New York or Chicago, and was arrayed against her every step of the way. She’d more than likely cut a few corners along the way, bent a few rules. Kicked one or two scum
bags’ asses without worrying too much about respecting the letter of due process.

  Venn thought she was the kind of cop he’d enjoy working with. And the kind he wouldn’t especially want as an enemy.

  Beth finished her account. Estrada hadn’t made notes, just as she hadn’t when Venn was speaking. Venn wondered if she was recording all of this - it was illegal to do so without informing the interviewees of the fact, but that didn’t mean Estrada wasn’t doing it - or if she simply had strong powers of recall.

  She slapped the desk top, leaned back once more.

  “Okay.” Her glance flicked to Venn, then Beth, then back to Venn, where it stayed. “I need to talk to you, Lieutenant. Doctor, this doesn’t concern you. You can go. And thank you for your cooperation.”

  “Hold on.” Venn wasn’t having that. “Beth and I are together, as you know. She was there too.”

  “Venn.” Beth stood up, gave him a quick smile. “It’s okay. Cop stuff. I’ll head on back to the hotel. Get a cab.”

  He looked at her, then at Estrada.

  “Really,” said Beth. To Estrada: “Is this going to take long?”

  “As long as it takes.” Estrada’s tone wasn’t hostile, just factual.

  “Okay.” Beth gave Venn’s shoulder a squeeze. “Wake me up if I’m asleep, yes?”

  And she was gone.

  It was as if somebody had pressed Estrada’s ‘on’ switch. As soon as the door was closed, she leaned forward, her face more animated.

  “Here’s the deal. I have an idea who the asshole that hit you was. I need you to listen to some voice recordings, see if they match up to his voice.”

  “Sure,” Venn said.

  Estrada had put her leather shoulder bag on the floor beside her when she sat down. She reached into it and took out an iPad. Placed it on the desk between them, touched the screen.

  A male voice issued forth, tinny and scratchy. The guy was speaking English, with a thick Spanish accent. Venn shook his head.

  Estrada held up a hand. “No. Don’t tell me yet. Listen to them all. There are six of them. I’ll play them back afterward, if necessary.”